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Played and finished Avowed. Pretty good game overall, would give it a 7/10 "Good". I'd also probably pick up a sequel, depending on where they intend to go with it (there is plenty of the living lands we haven´t been to, certainly would not mind seeing more of it), though likely not if they're going to charge 70EUR again. Forced dodge/parry based combat are not really my thing and just getting out of the way by just sidestepping an attack not being a real option kind of annoyed me. Aggro rules, if there are any, are rather opaque. There really did not seem to be any consistency on who mobs focus on. Even if you're in another room there´d be one that magically would chase you down to beat your skull in. Anyway, it obviously wasn't enough of a bother for me to not finish the game, but expletives were used at time. I thought the overall story was intriguing, though I do feel they dropped a bit too much information too early, by the end of the first area, if you're a bit of a completionist, you pretty much know the gist of what is going on and it feels as if the rest of the game just fills in the outline. The Scatterscarp major decision kinda felt icky to me, especially a scholar PC and/or Giatta should've been able to give more insight as to the consequences of one of the choices. It just felt like the devs were actively trying to rope you into a specific decision. The whole political angle to things, on the other hand, felt like it turned out a lot more black and white than I had hoped, which was a bit of a shame. Endgame choice While you appear "stuck" with your companions I did enjoy the ability to "agree to disagree" with them. That said there were, especially later in the game, some jarring inconsistencies in their reactions, where they'd praise you for something when it is happening and then scold you when talking about it in camp, or vice-versa. There was also the one quest near the end that made absolutely zero sense (the one with the stolen books in the archives) as you're given absolutely zero context so you're just making a decision blindly resulting in companion reactions that entirely out of left field. Thankfully that was the exception. Anyway, enjoyed my time with the game, would recommend (but not at the launch price). Aside from that I played through what is available of Subnautica 2 so far. Mostly it is more Subnautica, so if you didn´t like the prior ones, well, don't bother, but if you did, good times! The one thing that sort of annoyed me is the amount of hostile wildlife compared to the first one(s). I feel it cheapens the experience. It's a bit hard to explain, but feeling vulnerable and avoiding enemies as you didn´t know how dangerous they actually were felt like a big part of the earlier games. Having bits taken out of you on the regular kinda makes it less scary, if that makes sense? Curious to see how the game develops but they're off to a good start at least.

I was away for a while but yeah:

In a first for me, I am thrilled to report that one of my bird houses has produced a second nesting pair of this season. The first pair produced two chicks and then everyone moved out (I think) and now a new pair (I think) has moved in. I often wonder if the same birds come back but its impossible to differentiate between sparrows and Ive got a lot of them around here.

I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question: Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? "No!" says the quest marker, it belongs to the impatient. "No!" says the in-game GPS, it belongs to the blind. "No!" says the witcher sense, it belongs to the stupid. I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose... Gothic. The Gothic Remake Shows What's Wrong With Modern Games

Celebrating my 50th birthday. 👴🏼

I have finished GreedFall: The Dying World. In general, the game has charm and I am happy with the time spent, but there are technical issues and minor bugs. In terms of combat, the tactical approach did not change much - the tank CC's, everyone else hits. The tank companion was able to restore both his armour and health, so could effectively hold the line indefinitely (or until the damage received was higher than the AP generation). The only issue was the range of the Taunt ability when there were many foes. The final boss died surprisingly quickly on the first attempt, being able to perform only a single attack each time between getting stunned. On the continent, there were much fewer giant "guardian" bosses, but the ones present were unique in combat design and appearance. When compared to GF1, where there were very few types but at least one boss per location (as everyone and their grandpa were turning into the tree zombies), the difference is noticeable. I strongly suspect that a deeper understanding of the systems would be required on the higher difficulties, as there are a lot of active and passive abilities, their synergies, and craftable consumables. I was looting a lot, but did not have the need to use resources, so I shouldn't have combed the locations - it was a significant time sink and interesting or unique items were only in chests and only in ~5-10% of them. On an amusing note, some armour descriptions were easter eggs - there was a jacket of Those Who Come After (Expedition 33), an armour of the Sands of Time (Prince of Persia), and some heavy cuirass referencing a Balor and a bridge (the Lord of the Rings, I believe). I like the equipment design quite a lot, though the colour schemes being bound to the equipment tiers was somewhat unpleasant (granted, only the tank really needed the armour). In terms of story, it was quite compelling overall. The PC is unavoidably mostly Neutral Good and can automatically do dumb ****. It is noticeable in the main quest, but there are more options in the side quests. The antagonist appeared in person fairly late, though the impact of the actions was felt throughout the game. I'd say that it is welcome, as talking BBEGs annoy me immensely. Unfortunately, the PC is also unavoidably a druid story-wise, even if they wear heavy armour and wield a rifle. As for the continuity, the quest outcomes tracked correctly (e.g. the Knight appears if survives), even if sometimes unpleasantly (I said a wrong thing to a random guy in the main quest, so he did not cooperate and died suddenly in a side quest, so I messed up a faction quest line). There are smaller inconsistencies, such as a companion firstly being told that the PC's father died, then 15 minutes later in an environmental auto-dialogue asking about what happened to the PC's father (as in whether he was alive). At some point, a companion can do an unwise action and die. I was able to ask the companion kindly not to do it, so the party member was definitely not dead. When we revisited the location where the dialogue took place, the companion's corpse was lying prominently next to the path and the very same character was standing right next to me and being quite alive. A smaller thing is that I had found a turban with a full-face mask early and wore it throughout the playthrough. Every NPC still recognised me as an islander and, in one scene, I drank a potion without removing the headgear. Several times, I got kicked out from stealth for the enemies to start a dialogue, despite them normally being unable to look down and see me crouching 2 metres away. Also, in a side quest, we found a lizard dog, a lewolan, who had been brought to the continent and quite stressed due to being a territorial animal in an unfamiliar environment. So, naturally, the party liberated the scaly doggo and stashed him in the cargohold next to the merchant. At no point there was an opportunity to release him back on the island, so he stayed there with the tail clipping through the wall behind. Overall, the side quests were satisfying and the number and variety were just right - no filler and the world did not feel empty. The companion quests provided an impressive range of activities, from the usual combat to stealth to puzzles, so I was quite happy with them. Also, somewhere from the mid-game, several capes with +2 to the talents became available, so they covered a lot of skill checks. I still needed some investment to get the Hard checks, but there were few enough of them. As for the other bugs, the game crashed a few times during cutscenes, I had only one corrupted save file and once the companions' bodies and hair failed to load, so I was talking to bald flying heads and hands. The more noticeable issues were the performance, the NPCs and textures loading late (so the props, such as brooms and sword were levitating), and the ship. When you travel between the main areas via the ship, you first get teleported to the ship, and only then to the chosen fast travel point. While the area loads (from an SSD), the game, including the sound, stutters and briefly freezes. It would have been better if the loading screen for this was just the ship sailing animation (either its concept art or something more fancy, like it moving on the world map), especially considering that the ship could be fast-travelled to at any time. One time (that I noticed), an optional merchant became unavailable (despite loudly advertising her services) and I missed a unique piece of armour. Regarding the DLC, I think it was released on 4 May, so Spiders themselves must have worked on it. From SteamDB, there have not been any file updates since. I suppose, unless the developers somehow reorganise and regain their IP, there might be no further support.

Still playing Cyberpunk 2077. The loot system is boring. Also decided to give Postal 4 another shot and I am very happy decided to do so: the recent patch finally made the game playable and I am liking it so far. I also bought Dead island 2 Ultimate Edition based on what @BruceVC had to say about it. It was on sale for only 7 bucks.

I get that all the time, minus the region change. Just delete YT cookies. Every time I close/open my desktop browser, YT's home page is black/no thumbnails and tells me to search/watch so they can figure out what I like. >.> Based on my tablets "cookies remain" action, while YT's "personalized" algorithm has always been poo, the last 4-6 months it's been even more poo - like they changed how it works recently perhaps (not surprising ofc).

YouTube thinks I am a Russian in Finland, is rather funny

This randomly popped up on youtube in incognito, well not this video specifically but Asmongold reacting to it. 😂 So it's double the dose. Going on yt with a fresh algorithm is an experience, especially if you change regions.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance2 Full playthrough took me a bit over 150h, and I enjoyed every 2nd of it. My only disappointment is some of the ending I got - for one I was aiming to play honourable Henry but according to the game (and my imaginary parents) I was quite a scoundrel nonetheless. Apparently I stole quite a bit and according to my stats killed over 50 civilians.... though fair enough. I not upset about it per-say, but I was thinking about playing scoundrel Henry for my 2nd playthrough, and now I feel like I should try good Henry again, especially as I can miss on some quests now. There are also some odd things. Like being judged for unnecessarily pursuing revenge by killing the traitor, while the only reason I did that was to save a comrade he was torturing. The game didn't even give me an option to knock him out and lethal option was the only one available. Apparently you are supposed to talk to him, duel him and then you have an option to let him go (after which he alerts the camp to your presence). Which 1) taking away systemic options for the same of contrived scripted choice - not cool, 2) I mean... at the moment two of us are on the very dangerous mission and sabotaging it means loosing not only our lives but everyone defending in the castle. If there was a justified kill in KCD2, it probably was this one. A more disappointing bit though, is that the game didn't recognize my devotion to Theresa. I withhold from romancing and sleeping with anyone for the whole playthrough and mentioned Theresa whenever I could but she still wasn't an option at the end. I suspect I messed up at the very start of playthrough as I meant to be modest when asked about my romantic life, while the game interpreted it as not romanced Theresa in KCD1. That hurts more, as I will definitely want to explore romance options for my 2nd playthrough. oh well. That aside - what a game. It has a bit of Baldur's Gate2 symptom - it's clearly a richer, more polished and expansive game then the original and overall superior in gameplay and storytelling, but I missed a bit roughness of KCD1. A more friendly progression in KCD2 means the world doesn't feel nearly as threatening, and considering the sheer size of the tile, I think Henry gets good at stuff a bit too quickly. Entire latter part of the playthrough was me choosing which maxed out stat I want to use, most of the time. In general, I wish there was far more choice to be made. I think core system with skills raising as we use them and perks is fine, but that we don't really have to choose much to me is. In the end, in most cases you will be able to get every perk in most skill trees, and that is just not very interesting. However I choose to play Henry, he will likely end up the same, unless I am really picky on what quests I do and how I approach situations. I wonder if a non-completionist playthrough would change how I feel about it, but at the moment I feel KCD could beneift from branching skill trees and some limit in progression. Anyway, nitpicks here and there. Masterstrike still trivializes combat on your end, while your opponents using it strongly punishes exploring other options. Overall loved it, and feel and urge to boot KCD1 turn on hardcore mode and do another full playthrough. Being sad when a 100+h game ends is I think the best recommendation I can get.

I finished Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened after about 20 hours It was incredibly short but still fun. The detective mechanics grow on you and how you find clues really becomes engaging Its gets a solid 60\100 on the " BruceVC game rating system " Now Im playing the new version of Temple of Elemental Evil I first played it in 2006 before I had a dedicated gaming PC and I used my work laptop. I cant remember if I finished it but I do remember I loved it and the Greyhawk setting which is my 2nd favorite D&D gameworld and D&D is overall my favorite ruleset I used this Steam mod guide to configure ToEE and I also installed Co8 and Temple+ so Im playing that version and not SNEG. I recommend this guide for anyone wanting to understand the different install options and how to mod the game https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3623934050 I created my 6 characters manually, its great fun micromanaging everything. I did have to review some D&D rules just to remind myself of a few things My party consists of fighter barbarian cleric rogue wizard sorcerer Lets see how things progress 🐲

World Cup Tourists Meet A*M*E*R*I*C*A

Went to see Project Hail Mary in a theater in San Fran. Then drove back. Had dinner some random diner on the way back. Quite a drive for a movie, but got me out and I feel a tad better. Hubby's currently unable/unwilling to do anything like that still (back) so I'm going to have to learn to do some activities alone. Which sucks imo. When is that surgeon going to call us.

You're gonna need a bigger pants.

I'm pretty sure that's a vanilla game issue. You can also keep summoned or "natural" weapons with the help of Spiritshift/Form of the Fearsome Brute, Draining Touch and Minor Blights*. So something with the implementations of "switching forms" and "switching weapons" along the way is not 100% watertight. * for example cast Minor Blights, then shift into an Ogre, then the right Ogre Fists weapon gets replaced by a minor blight - bc. they rotate elemental types and this will summon a new form of blight weapon every time, even when you are shifted and cannot cast, then when the fight ends before the Minor Blights and Fearsome Brute spell runs out you will transform back into your normal form - with an Ogre Fist in your weapon slot which you can use like any other weapon (it's auto scaling). They are actually pretty good because they always interrupt on crit. And they make a funny boink sound when striking with them. Same can be done with spiritshift weapons or the one handed Great Sword of Citzal (PL9 wizard spell). That's all without any mods.

Not clicking on that dumbass' video, will just safely assume it's some crying about woke.

They already have factories in place, in fact they have a stranglehold on lower level/older chip production (they produce 90% of it) and from what I understood they are able to manufacture ddr5. I guess the question is are they able to produce ddr5 at scale...

7 Days to Die, 3.0 experimental - wait, wait - there's a No Experience option. I tested it - zero XP for doing anything. I've lowered XP gain before for gamestage difficulty reasons, but never thought about a "level 1 forever". Oh oh oh, this has possibilities. --the only power progression would be found or crafted higher lvl gear and mods you can use in that gear --the entire skill/perk tree is useless (less meaningful than one might think, but it does make a difference --could also lower gamestage/other to make found loot rarer, and limit or remove Traders, weaken zombie spawns etc to taste. Maybe wandering nomad survivor style vs. looter shooter/tower defense would feel a lot more fun again. Gonna try it.

Happy father's day everyone. I took the family to Disneyland last week. It was expensive, but the crowds were light on 2 of the 3 days. The Star Wars area is amazing and I hung out there as much as possible. We hadn't been in a decade, so I am glad I got it in with them before they become full adults.

It feels the same to me. The gameplay (the way the guns shoot, the gun types and PC movement) and level design are very similar, even the enemies are similar. Saying that it's been a long while since I played Gears of War.

I suppose both have chainsaw attached to a more conventional weapon. And I suppose Space Marine could also be described as third person cover shooter, assuming the Marine is also the cover. 😁

Are Scottish soccer fans drinking all of the beer in Boston? The Tartan Army is drinking the place dry.

Finished Chaos Gate Demon Hunters. I liked it overall, there was enough there to pull me towards the ending. Although I rushed through the last part of it and skipped some available missions that showed up. Missed the 500 days achievement by a couple of days, but apart from that nothing else that I really wanted to do. Could have gotten that too if I didn't prolong the game to get some upgrades, but w/e... I don't see the complaint that there is not enough enemy variety, but I will complain about the boss fights. They are ass and don't feel like bosses at all. I played on normal, but I still should not be able to kill them before they get their turn. They had the idea with the last boss, which was damage gated. So that took some time at least, but it wasn't particularly challenging. Yeah, they sort of seem to not know what they want with the threat mechanics. They did say they plan to expand on it and make it more interesting but so far I agree that it's a step down from the first part. Although I will say that the first part may have been better in that regard simply because it was new and people were interacting with it for the first time. Here, in part 2, people already know what to expect so the feeling of see it for the first time is lost.

Some US FIFA humor

The title should be obvious. I included very few screenshots related to the companions and a lot related to various unexpected or amusing situations. The ratio is probably the opposite. From the 2nd/3rd area, I had to turn the FSR on and it had some sort of sharpening built-in. I like the armour design. Freedom. Kind of. The loading screens look good. Somehow the melee party members manage to hit the Lookout Monkey. Can't beat the skill. The Knightess. Just a random area. The game is a bit rigid with traversal and, while it looks nice on the screenshots, the only way to navigate is with the Tracking vision on (the screenshot above). The boss I have ~140 screenshots on Steam (more locally) and I will try to share them here. Uxantis Olima Peren The Mid-game Spoiler-land Post-mid-game Our talking-tree god is the best god. It offends my sensibilities - these are not machetes. The Expedition 33 reference. The Prince of Persia reference. This is a kukri, not a saber. Stealth All 11 busts. Not the most interesting collectible. End-game

The Outer Worlds 2 is conspicuously absent from Xbox's roadmap despite supposedly having two DLCs planned.

I really hate that babyface. Not sure exactly what it is - maybe the lips? Something about it just looks so weird to me. It's probably supposed to look cute, but it just seems creepy to me.

I think I'm in the end game of the Chaos Gate Demon Hunters. Was able to kill the first of the five bosses in one turn. Kind of rushing through the game, as in I'm not bothering with getting to upgrade everything. Maybe it's because of that, but so far I have not experienced that the lack of enemy variety is bothering me.

yesss!

Maybe combat will be less exhausting than RT is sometimes

The protagonist's expression is as stupid as the writing in Expeditions: Rome...

Well... I hope story is good cause gameplay looks very mid. That has been my main reservation with C:R since the announcement - Remedy's gameplay tends to not be their strongest suit, and third person action gameplay is very rarely done well. Add to that RPG system, and the result could be really unsatisfying, unengaging smashy thing. That boss battle looked really dull - couple smacks in the face, chase it to the other side of the room while dodging some slow projectiles, smash again, chase it again etc. Reviews will definitely dictate how much I will be paying for this one.

Stuff that caught my attention from SGF (in addition to Alien Iso2 above): Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin is being developed by Platinum games. Their track record with the IP isn't great, but hopefully they will redeem themselves. I hear ninja Gaiden4 was alright My ex-Naughty Dogs. It will probably not be my thing, but I still found it quite compelling as a watch: Virtua Fighter6 finally got reveal, mostly focused on stuff previous entries didn't have - singleplayer story mode. I will be more curious what the veterans will think of gameplay once we know more of how the game plays. SF6 story mode helped me to get into SF, hopefully this will do the same for VI. Tried VI5 but to me being stuck in training mode and trying to figure things out the hard way just doesn't work. Eh, I hope it is good: SF6 roster reveal is bizzare. 3 newcomers (including story mode wet blanket of an NPC made playable character) plus Tifa. It could be very good - SF6 could use some more newcomers, but it is difficult to be hyped about characters you know nothing about. Also Allegedly no more new story content and it seems no new stages. Capcom is either brewing something big, or seeing how little they can invest in SF6 and still rake the same amount of money. And speaking of Tifa: Day one on PC this time around. Meh, I am mixed on this trilogy - the meta "uuuu we change the narrative" is very frustrating to me and it being the finale could be make or break story wise.

I'm still around. In fact, this forum is the only game developer forum I still frequent.

I remember losing weapons to form of helpless beast, maybe it's just the game rather than the mod

Maybe that's because the kitty is the guy's summoned familiar! 😸

Today is Marilyn Monroe's 100th birthday, so here's a classic ode...

World Cup 2026 power rankings: Counting down all 48 teams (USA Today) Brazil is number 7?

Edit: Apparently a vanilla issue and not a problem with the mod. Bug I found with spiritshift. If I duplicate my main hand weapon to the second weapon set, with another weapon in my off hand, and have this set equiped when I spiritshift, my off hand weapon in my second set gets deleted when i shift back after combat. This does not happen if I have a completely different set of weapons, or if I have my 1st set of weapon equiped when i spiritshift. A tale of a deleted gun in 3 images: (tested and it also happens when i don't have 3 weapon sets)

The Evil has been defeated, NBA is saved.

I'm having the same issues - it's less a freeze - more some kind of stuttering. The last update 0.4.1 did a reset to all the settings. With all the graphic settings on "high" i still got 90 fps. Even after i set the max fps to 60 i still got that stuttering (mostly while moving fast). Not sure wich setting i should change to avoid it.

I play these games on normal, but I save scum the ever living hell out of them. Last mission I replayed 3 times and ended up concluding that there is no way to perfect clear it. I did stop trying to savescum for rerolls though.

I should try to suck less at it. Playing Everspace, it's ok, but Rogue likes aren't for me I think.

The optimization is abysmal for this game and it's very janky, still having fun though.

Here's a link. It's the FT article reproduced in the non paywalled Irish Times. Hasn't seen a dollar spent to help rebuild Gaza, is definitely a distinction that needs to be made. You can bet prospective Gauleiter of Gaza Tony Blair* and pals have had their snouts in the trough though, especially since Blair's been in the media. Telling Starmer he needs to suck up to Trump more and that will solve all his problems. They've also had at least one actual meeting, where they decided... to ask the UNSC to ask Hamas to disarm. Ho hum and Ha ha, given that the BoP was marketed as a way to neuter/ end run the UNSC rather than begging them to do something like everyone else does. *At least George Bush had the decency to retire rather than still inflicting himself on the world 15 years after leaving politics like Blair does.

Menace is definitely my new addiction. It doesn't resemble Battle Brothers in any way, except for it being a perfect turn based game that makes me think about every turn obsessively.

Yes, this I agree with you. I also don't care for DnD mechanics, for me because I find that it relies too much on random chance and does not give the player's character creation and advancement choices the centrality they deserve in how characters function. And also interestingly, my favorite DnD character has always been the dual-wielding fighter/rogue multiclass. 😀 Solasta is okay. I played and then replayed it once, and got my money's worth from it (including the expansion). But I doubt I'll want to replay it again. Hopefully, Solasta II will be significantly improved, especially in its character development and roleplaying aspects.

Picked up Warhammer 40k Chaosgate Demon Hunters. Pretty much an xcom reskin so far and I'm all for it.